This Blog Will Save Your Life!

As long as you have some kind of heart defect that can only be cured by reading this blog. Convenient, right?

This week’s blog is about headlines. More specifically about headlines in health and medical articles, and is a companion piece to the article from last week.

We all know the press loves to sensationalise stories. Remember the craze about superfoods I talked about last week? How pomegranates and blueberries cure cancer, stop child abuse and fight fires, all while rocking a James Dean slicked back hair do?

Maybe not in so many words, but in 2013 the world went a bit doolally* over these unassuming constituent parts of muffins and smoothies.  The studies so far failed to figure out why exactly this was, especially regarding Blueberries, as they contain no particularly high or dense quantities of nutrients or antioxidants. (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1851/2)

Don’t just believe me though. (http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/healthyliving/cancercontroversies/superfoods/)

So while the media went a bit mad with articles like “Superfoods Fight Cancer” really all that was happening was they wanted you to click on their article or pick up the paper. Had you done so, you would have found dubious sourcing and abbreviated quotes to sensationalise otherwise quite well balanced opinions.

Of course it didn’t take long until people like yours truly were shouting about the over hyping and misleading headlines, before we got this from the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2598694/Why-called-superfoods-BAD-Nutritionist-says-kale-send-thyroid-haywire-quinoa-irritates-gut.html)

Anyway, that’s quite enough links for one article, but I think you get the idea. Linking to last weeks article, make sure you see through the headline glare, and read what the article actually says, and who it sources. Before you decide to cut Kale totally out of your diet in case your Thyroid gets a bit antsy, consider looking in a bit more depth at what proof the Daily Mail cares to provide you.

I lied about the last link. This one is. http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/12December/Pages/your-guide-to-hitting-the-headlines.aspx

The reason I wrote this is because I wanted to bring this one to your attention. It’s a light-hearted piece by the Behind the Headlines team at NHS Choices, and I recommend giving it a read.

This is quite a short one this week, but if I went any further I might be impinging on the intellectual property of NHS choices, and woe betide he who does such a thing.

I hope these last two articles were a bit more enlightening, and that you are now armed with the knowledge to think a bit more critically about the headlines. And maybe not believe everything you read. Except this blog. You should treat this as gospel.

*Interesting fact about the expression Doolally. It originated in early 20^th centuryBritish India, and refers to Deolali Transit camp, where soldiers being sent home would wait for a ship back to ol’ Blighty. The waiting times were severe, and so stemmed the phrase Doolally Tap, to meaning crazy waiting. (Doolally being a corruption of the name Deolali, and tap from the Sanskrit word “tápa” meaning fever.) Don’t say I never teach you anything.

 

AMR- What, Who, When, Where and How?

What is AMR? Well, I’m glad you asked. If you hadn’t I probably would have assumed I didn’t need to write this. AMR is fancy jargon for AntiMicrobial Resistance. It may be something you have heard about in the news, and should you be clinical staff, on the job. It refers to how the bugs are winning the fight.

Since the discovery of Penicillin, humans have used all kinds of cultures to stave off infection by the trillions of little gribblies all just waiting to force you to take a day off work. It is in fact a hard-pressed conflict. As we go on using them, many bacteria will develop an immunity or resistance to certain types of antibiotic, similar to how you are likely immune to Smallpox. (Thanks Edward Jenner!)

This provides quite the challenge for the brainy folk who go about their daily jobs trying to find new weapons in this ongoing struggle. Miracle drugs don’t grow on trees! Or maybe they do, but there are a lot of trees to check.

So is that it? Just wait for the inevitable tide of Bacteria to come kick down your front door and abscond with your spouse, all while you sit there blowing your nose?
Ridiculous hypotheticals aside, there are several things you can do as an individual to curtail the spread. You never know, if everyone starts doing this, maybe it’ll have an impact!

Some decent guidelines to follow are:

·         Cover your mouth when you sneeze. For one, it’s just polite. Second, logic dictates that if a strain of bacteria infects less people, it will have less likelihood to be subjected to a gauntlet of antibiotics, and will therefore have less of a chance to develop immunity.

·         Follow basic Infection Control guidelines. You should be doing this already, I’m just pointing out there are reasons beyond NHS officials having a thing for clean hands.

·         Do not save antibiotics prescribed to you by your doctor as part of a course “for next time.” That isn’t how it works. If you don’t finish the course, the antibiotics don’t do their job properly. Antibiotics need to reach a certain level of saturation in your cells to have any effect. Bacteria that survive the course because the levels of drug are too low to kill them, have an opportunity to develop resistance to it. Don’t be Patient Zero of the dreaded Hedgehog Flu Outbreak of 2015. By “saving it for next time” you are undermining the whole reason to take the course in the first place!

·         Do not use antibiotics without the advice of a clinician. Those drugs you saved from last time may not be tailored in the correct dosage and quantity to appropriately attack the particular infection you have acquired. Let the doctor and pharmacist do their job. They probably know better than you. They get paid to do it for a living. And if you are a doctor? You should probably know better.

 

 

Right, well that’s that bit done with. Believe it or not, that all came from reading a couple of books on the topic, and consulting various publications by various institutions rather more qualified to declaim on the matter than I. They can all be found down at the library, as we are creating a display on the topic! I’ve even marked the relevant sections in a number of books hand-picked by a librarian for your convenience! We’re good like that.

 

Hope to see you soon, and I leave you with this little joke on the history of medicine.

2001 BC	Here, eat this root.
1000 AD	That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1850 AD	That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1920 AD	That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1945 AD	That pill is ineffective. Here, take this penicillin.
1955 AD	Oops... bugs mutated. Here, take this tetracycline.
1960-1999 AD	39 more “oops”... Here, take this more powerful antibiotic.
2000 AD	The bugs have won! Here, eat this root.

Musings on the New Year

January. A time of reinvention, of crowded gyms, streets filled with joggers and smoothies that taste “all right”, but only because it’s better than yesterdays.

I touched on the health craze that annually sweeps the nation this time of year briefly in my last article, but I wanted to go into a bit more depth this week in light of a pair of articles my colleague very kindly pointed out to me.

These articles are from the NHS Choices website, which I heartily recommend as a goldmine of good and grounded information on all manner of topics. Find it here.

I despair at what comes at the turn of each year. My twitter feed is inundated with various celebrities and public figures all promising to be better people and eat less junk food  My Facebook wall is similarly burdened with old schoolmates swearing off Alcohol/Cigarettes/McDonalds (other fast food chains are available)* only for me to see them outside the pub later that week with a cigarette in one hand and a pint in the other.

This rant is not aimed at making people feel bad about their New Years Resolutions, and if you are taking part in the Dry January challenge, or quitting smoking, and used the New year as a starting point then well done, and I believe you are more than capable of doing it. Remember, if you need help, there are organizations set up to help you quit smoking and reduce alcohol intake.  And you can always help others while doing it! https://registration.dryjanuary.org.uk/

What I want to express though, and the point of the article, is that there are a myriad of schemes, plans, mantras and “diets” that are based in dodgy science at best. The article my aforementioned colleague showed me was penned by Dr  Alicia White, who shared the same concerns as me.

She was concerned that most people do not know how to properly assess the legitimacy of a particular piece of text, be it a research paper or newspaper article.

The problem we face these days is oversaturation of the news. You can’t possibly read every piece of news that meanders its way through over your breakfast table, there simply isn’t time.  Just as you are unlikely to research into the minutiae of every diet you consider. Many people pick one based on a celebrity who lost a bunch of weight, or a “Superfood” like flavour of 2013, the blueberry.

The article I refer to explains this in a much more concise and enjoyable fashion than I will here, so the link is right here: http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/Howtoreadarticlesabouthealthandhealthcare.aspx.

Please give it a read, it’s well written and convincing, and provides invaluable information about several extremely relevant topics.

I’d also like to qualify this article by mentioning that by no means should you write off all diets and healthy living plans. As an example, I have been adhering to the 5:2 diet mentioned in the article above. A “fad” diet by definition, it suggests you reduce your calorific intake on two of every seven days to around 500 calories. Remember, I am not advertising this diet, but I would like to mention that I went into it with eyes open, and sceptical myself, which I believe is key to anything run by a for profit organisation. I did my research and found the scientific basis to it sufficiently convincing that I was prepared to try it. I was helped by my Dad’s success at it, and have been using what is effectively an altered eating plan for around 9 months. I’ve lost 3 stone now, and feel good. However, rather than risk this turning into a Weightwatchers Testimonial, I acknowledge that a good part of this weight loss is down to me starting to exercise more, drinking  less beer after leaving Uni, and that willpower isn’t just the force that Prince Charles' son can exert.

Why is this all relevant on a library blog? Well, for one thing, I wanted to write an article about this, and saw my chance when Helen the aforementioned colleague showed me the relevant source material. The other reason is that as a library, our job is to make knowledge more accessible. However, there is a lot of knowledge out there, and we can’t sift through the whole lot to ensure it is all pertinent and trustworthy for each individual. The referred to article lets you critique what you are reading for yourself.

 Knowledge is power, and we want to empower you.

 

Sorry for the slightly more serious article this week, but some topics don’t lend themselves to wanton tomfoolery. We’ll be back to more fun and frolics next week!

*Oh wait, I don’t work for the BBC…

Blog Article 3, This Time It's Personal

So here we are again. What should I talk about this week?

While there are several topics I wanted to talk about, I have decided for one more week to talk about the great things we do.

Friday the 28^th of November was the Striving for Excellence awards, which all the library staff attended (except the new guy) and all remarked it was brilliant seeing the innovation, effort and quality of care the staff of SDH make part of their everyday jobs.

A link to the full breakdown of the awards and their winners can be found here.

Our very own Liam Thornhill (Library Assistant turned IT Trainer) was a well deserved recipient of the Living the Values award, which he earned by being everything you might want someone helping you to be. Now I don’t want him getting a big head, but he’s been doing a great job here for 4 years, and in filling his role, I am constantly asked “oh are you the lovely young man who helped me last time I was in?”

Now, I am a lovely young man, but I’ve got my work cut out for me if I hope to follow in his footsteps.

 

Scoop It!

I also want you to take a look at the Healthcare Library’s Scoop.it page. It is updated daily with all the latest news from around the web. The two topics curated on there are SDH news which is a delight to read about all the good work you folks are doing, and a healthcare app page updated with information about all the latest apps that can help make clinicians and their patients lives easier/more contained within their smartphones.

Scoop it is an underused tool that I had never heard of before I started work here, but I do recommend checking it out. Think of it more as a Twitter where you follow topics relevant to you rather than people who post motivational quotes and pictures of kittens. Not that kittens aren’t relevant, but you get my gist.

Find it here! http://www.scoop.it/t/medical-apps-by-healthcarelibrary

Back on display!

November in the library was “Self-Care Month”. In conjunction with the week running the 17^th to the 23^rd of November we have had a display of tips and tricks to keep you jolly and healthy throughout winter. Although that display is gone now, you can still get information on the NHS choices website.

Taking its place once more by our glorious self-issue machine is the Mood Boosting Book display. Featuring Works by Terry Pratchett, Victoria Hislop and James Bowden, we have a range of books that will cheer you up on a dismal British December evening.

 

Healthcare Current Awareness Bulletins

Our resident librarians remind me of Santa’s elves. Not because they are short and have high pitched voices, but because they spend a good portion of their time working on Elfcare , sorry Healthcare Current Awareness Bulletins.

These Bulletins are tailor made with the latest guidance and research to help keep you up to date with the most recent developments in the field of your choice. Want to know more about Urology? Who doesn’t?! You can find a focused Bulletin on the topic by simply selecting your topics and emailing them to us at Library.Office@salisbury.nhs.uk.

To save you unnecessary clicking, and because I’m good like that, here is the list of topics you can get updated with.

Acute and Critical Care                              Occupational Health

Alcohol,                                                        Ophthalmology

 Burns and Plastics,                                    Orthopaedics

 Cleft Lip and Palate,                                  Paediatrics

 Dementia,                                                   PCI/Cardiology

 Dermatology                                             Pharmacy

Diabetes/Endocrinology                           Public Health

End of Life Care,                                         Rheumatology

Fertility,                                                       Spinal Cord Injuries

Infection Prevention/Control                  Stroke

Maternity Care                                          Urology

 Neonatal Care                                          Wound Care

Neurology                         

Then your little bundle of research will turn up in your inbox (stocking) periodically all wrapped up and ready to go. See? Elves.

 

So there we are. Another week, another series of flippant remarks and bad irrelevant tangents.

I would love to know what you guys think about the blog, and if there are any topics you might be interested and want to hear me discuss in future articles please leave a comment in the comments section.

Equally if you hate what I’m doing with this blog and only reading in a fit of self-loathing, let me know in the comments. This is the internet and if someone isn’t calling the author rude names on a public domain it just feels a bit weird…

 

Also, you should tell all your colleagues to have a look. It’s nice to share, especially at Christmas!


Until next time…

Librarians. What on earth do we do?

So they let me write another one. Phew…

This week, now that introductions are out the way, and you know where we are, I want to talk about the jobs that the staff at the Healthcare Library do.

But wait Gareth, don’t you all just sit around reading books and tell people to “shhh” for a living?

Well in a dream world, that would be the plan, but too much shushing starts to wear on the throat after a while, and we all feel like this might be a misappropriation of Trust resources. Instead we carry out tasks that help keep the library running and most importantly, keep access to the resources you guys need available and easy to find.

Sounds easy right?

So, let’s break down our friendly staff into their job roles shall we?

These would be the Librarians and Library Assistants.

That didn’t take long.

Your faithful Library Assistant team at this particular Healthcare Library consists of  myself (Gareth) and my esteemed colleague Anne-Marie Fitton. Our particular responsibilities cover two separate sections of our physical and online resources.

 Anne-Marie is the Keeper of the Books. Not actually her job title but it sounds more dramatic... As well as the myriad of other tasks she performs in her role as our Library Office Manager, she is also the channel through which all our inter-library loans take place. She is an integral cog to our service, and resident expert on all things.

 (I didn’t miss a bit out here, she knows everything)

If you need a book and we can’t provide it from our stock, she can track it down. If you have any queries about the library service, she will know the answer. If there's something strange in your neighbourhood... You should probably call Ghostbusters, but Anne-Marie will give it a crack!

Although I’m still learning, my role is managing the journal stock both electronic and in physical form. This amounts to looking after the collection we have, and adding to it when possible. I’m also responsible for responding to other library’s loan requests, as well as making sure you have a pleasant visit and any issues you encounter are resolved quickly and effectively. I also write the Blog, state the obvious, and run the ScoopIt page.

We are both full-time, so if you are popping in on a weekday when we are staffed, you can be sure to find one of our delightful visages waiting to help.

The Librarians down here are Jenny Lang, Caroline Thomas, and Helen Clemow. When you think librarian, you think some old battle-axe peering down the length of her nose, tutting just loud enough to shame you as you remonstrate what a mistake it was to come to the library whilst still being an organic being that requires breathing to live. Shame on you.

I was apprehensive of having to work with such characters, as I too need oxygen to live, and was beginning to puzzle out a way of somehow oxygenating my blood through some kind of intravenous system. (Patent Pending)

Then I turned up in the library and had to scrap my design. They were extremely tolerant of gas breathing carbon beings! In fact, since I’ve been here I’ve not heard a single tut, remonstration, recrimination, scolding or a haughty sigh!

The librarians are really keen to get the best experience possible for your visits, and keep you coming back. After all, knowledge is power, and we want to empower you to do your job as effectively as possible. That’s our job.

No longer in the dark ages are we. Books are not closely guarded as means of keeping the riff-raff in line any more.

That’s all very well, but what can the Librarian do for you?

A good question and one that cannot be answered in the limited word count available to me. To see a full list of what we can do, click here.

The service that I wanted to tell you about, and possible one of the most valuable services this library provides, is the Literature Search. A literature search is a very simple thing to request. Simply fill in one of our forms at our website with as much detail as possible, and our Librarians will scour the internet and databases, finding up to date and relevant information, fully referenced and ready to go! Time saving extraordinaire!

So once again, thanks for reading and I hope this will inspire you to let us help you do less work.

Until next time…


New Books!

De Swiet's medical disorders in obstetric practice	Powrie, Raymond O	WQ220
Introduction to research	DePoy, Elizabeth	WB25
Communication skills in health and social care	Moss, Bernard	WLM816
Critical reading and writing for postgraduates	Wallace, Mike	L125
Nursing research	Munhall, Patricia L.	WY20
How to write a paper	Hall, George M.	Q50
Risk assessment in people with learning disabilities	Sellars, Carol	WM805
The good research guide	Denscombe, Martyn	HM20
Minor injuries	Purcell, Dennis	WD458
Innovating for patient safety in medicine	Lawton, Rebecca	WA55
Disabling barriers - enabling environments	Swain, John	WB600
Essential knowledge and skills for healthcare assistants	Rawles, Zoe	WY120
Research methods for clinical therapists	Hicks, Carolyn M.	WB25
Succeeding in literature reviews and research project plans for nursing students	Williamson, Graham R.	WY20

An Era Ends

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Healthcare Library Blog!

I hope you are sitting down, because the library blog is under new authorship.

Your previous guide to the Library, Liam has moved on to pastures new, and has secured a secondment in the lofty heights of the IT department. (Congrats Liam!) For the next year, I shall be your Sherpa to the comings and goings of the library. But wait, I hear you say, who is this we put our trust in to provide valuable information on the machinations of that sanctuary of knowledge?!

Introducing….

Gareth Hall. You may know me from my time in the Orthopaedic, Oral and Plastic Outpatients department admin team. If not, never fear as I am in the library every day of the week, just pop on down and say Hi!

I moved on down to the library to cover Liam’s adventure into IT, and have enjoyed every day of it.
The Library is in my opinion, a vastly underrated resource in this hospital. I am not even sure many hospital staff are aware we are down here. In case you are one of those uninitiated, we are in the old hospital, just down the corridor from Hedgerows café. Come stick your head in and say hello, maybe even read a book/journal!

We provide a variety of services from a quiet place to study, to performing literature searches on a topic of your choice for those of you who cannot find the time in between shifts to cram in studying for that paper/article/course you need to do.

Of course we also have books. We’re a library. I’m sure you guessed that. Our book stock ranges from Anatomy to Zygotes. We are constantly updating our stock with the newest and most up to date books, recommended by you! To see our new additions this month, check the list down the page.

 In the event that you are unable to find that elusive copy you need in our collection, we can procure one from another Library through the Inter Library Loan system. Ooooh.

Same goes for journals. Can’t find what you need? Either we can chase it down for you, or it doesn’t exist. In which case we can help you do the research to make it exist! Amazing. That’s teamwork.

In summary then, I’m new, come say hello! The library is awesome; you should try it out sometime. If you do already, great! Maybe we have a resource or tool that you were unaware of that can make your job easier. We want  to help. It’s our job, and we love it.

 

Hope to see you soon!

 

 

 

New Books in the Library

We love books. Here are the new ones we’ve got.

Title	Authors	Shelf Mark
Moorfields manual of ophthalmology	Jackson, Timothy L.	WW100
Oxford handbook of clinical haematology	Provan, Drew	WH140
Student nurse infection control	Smith, Barbara	WC195
Oxford handbook of endocrinology and diabetes	Wass, John A. H.	WK100
Neurological examination made easy	Fuller, Geraint	WL250
Rheumatology and orthopaedics	Elias-Jones, Cameron	WD900
Prostate cancer	Tewari, Ashutosh	WJ752
Colorectal cancer	Scholefield, John H.	WI435
Haematology	Hatton, Chris S. R.	WH100
Rapid infection control nursing	Ross, Shona	WC195
ABC of colorectal cancer	Young, Annie Miller	WI435
Minor injury and minor illness at a glance	Morris, Francis	WD450
ABC of major trauma	Skinner, David V.	WD450
ABC of prostate cancer	Dasgupta, Prokar	WJ752
Moving and handling people	Ruszala, Sue	W372
Moving and handling of plus size people	Muir, Mary A.	W372
Textbook of adult emergency medicine	Cameron, Peter	WD450
Wilkins' clinical assessment in respiratory care	Heuer, Albert J.	WF141
Harrison's pulmonary and critical care medicine	Loscalzo, Joseph	WF100
Harrison's rheumatology	Fauci, Anthony S.	WD900

 

 

 

Things you probably should be using but aren't.

 

In this section you can find a list of things that you'll find useful, but probably don't use, for whatever reason as a top 5 list. Because everyone likes Top 5 lists.

 

In no particular descending order...

 

5. The calendar on your phone. Really useful. I've used it a grand total of once to check what day of the year my birthday is.

 

4. That hedgehog boot scraper you bought. No one wants to stamp on a hedgehog.

 

3. Anatomy TV! OK, this one is serious. Anatomy TV is a brilliant tool accessible for Athens users. Liam wrote a piece on it earlier this year. Find it by scrolling down.

 

2.  The E-book and E-Journal facility available to you through the Library. A massive resource. If you think we have a lot of journals in the Library, you should look online. It goes on for miles.

 

1. What we've all been waiting for... Us! The staff at your friendly Healthcare Library will help with any queries, searches or requests you may have, but we can't help you unless you let us.